I've just caught up with Tom Atlee's report on a wealth of innovative deliberation techniques demonstrated at a recent conference in Perth, Western Australia, where the government has been pioneering what Tom calls a "committed experiment in democratic collective intelligence".
The conference, organised by Janette Hartz-Karp, immersed participants in demonstrations of methods including 21st Century Town Meeting, Deliberative Polling, World Cafe, Mind Mapping, Citizens Jury, Wisdom Council, and Dynamic Facilitation.
Panelists also provided a list of suggestions on how to ensure people are included in deliberative processes, among them:
* Learn the historical and cultural factors important to the populations you want to reach.
* Understand the dynamics of oppression and how factors such as race, level of education, economic status, disability, sexuality, gender, and religious background can combine to exclude people from being chosen or, once chosen, from speaking up and being taken seriously -- and work to counter such suppressive factors.
* Identify and engage the key players and opinion leaders in those populations.
* Explore how physical, geographic and economic factors may play a role in people's ability to participate, and compensate for these (such as by providing transportation, child care, payment, etc.).
* Find out what kinds of interactions they've had with other such projects, with officials of various sorts, and with mainstream society.
* Make it clear how their participation will make a difference. Be honest and don't making promises you can't keep or be too grandiose in your proposals.
* Provide enough time and realistic information for them to consider your project.
* Use random selection, with special efforts to reach such people if they don't turn up (e.g., don't have phones).
* Give them opportunities to speak in their own way and to be well heard and respected for what they contribute.
* Increase public employees' and officials' awareness of these factors and improve their ability to handle them.
Tom is also facilitating development of the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation wiki, which provides more detailed explanation of methods he mentions. Discovered via Happenings - Thataway
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